"Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows near the wall, was also listening intently to the hobbit-talk. He had a tall tankard in front of him, and was smoking a long-stemmed pipe curiously carved. His legs were stretched out before him, showing high boots of supple leather that fitted him well, but had seen much wear and were now caked with mud. A travel-stained cloak of heavy dark-green cloth was drawn close about him, and in spite of the heat of the room he wore a hood that overshadowed his face; but the gleam of his eyes could be seen as he watched the hobbits."

It honestly isn't super easy for me.;;; I have a bunch of failed sketches that were driving me insane over the past few days--which is why I turned to the MLP thread to ask for help in the first place. That said, having several references by your side really does help a ton, 'cause drawing blindly (unless you have photographic memory, or just a really good memory in general) tends to not end up looking all that great if you're not used to it as first, while having a reference to look back to every now and then helps you to correct your mistakes as you go along.

It honestly isn't super easy for me.;;; I have a bunch of failed sketches that were driving me insane over the past few days--which is why I turned to the MLP thread to ask for help in the first place. That said, having several references by your side really does help a ton, 'cause drawing blindly (unless you have photographic memory, or just a really good memory in general) tends to not end up looking all that great if you're not used to it as first, while having a reference to look back to every now and then helps you to correct your mistakes as you go along.

That's both not surprising and worrisome for me at the same time. You are very good Hiroko, you seem to have a natural talent for this and can achieve mastery with what seems like ease. Although I'm not going to doubt there has been a lot of hard work done and failed sketches. Neither the reference thing.

but tell me, on average how often to you spend time drawing per day and per week?

Varspool wrote:I never expected that the MLP style was hard to draw. But then again I never attempted to draw anything resembling something to MLP. xD

I really love how crisp and clean your lines are. I can never get anything drawn on paper without it smearing all over the place.

I think it's mostly getting the body and expressions right that can be a bit difficult. Especially when it comes to drawing the legs in motion, since most fans of the show (myself included) don't quite have the anatomy of horses/ponies down, so legs end up looking kinda awkward at times. That, and it gets complicated when you start drawing the character in different views. Most are only comfortable with drawing ponies from the side, rather than front, back, 3/4 views, and everything else in between. This is sorta true of drawing most characters, though, as doing character turnarounds can take a bit of getting used to.

Anyway, thank you very much. :3 I don't usually have the smearing problem unless I start shading, but think something you can do to alleviate the smearing problem is to place a piece of paper (whether another sheet of paper or a piece of tissue) between your hand and the drawing you're working on. That way your hand doesn't pick up on the graphite and smear it around as much.

Alternatively, sketch very lightly so that you don't put too much graphite on the page, and when you're satisfied with the sketch, go back in and redraw just a little darker over the lines you want to keep. This is more or less what I do, and I think it probably helps with keeping lines looking crisp as well.

Blood Lord wrote:That's both not surprising and worrisome for me at the same time. You are very good Hiroko, you seem to have a natural talent for this and can achieve mastery with what seems like ease. Although I'm not going to doubt there has been a lot of hard work done and failed sketches. Neither the reference thing.

but tell me, on average how often to you spend time drawing per day and per week?

Thanks, Blood Lord.

To be honest, I'm really not sure. I hardly keep track of how much time I spend drawing, and, unfortunately, my drawing tendencies have been a little inconsistent as of late. I used to draw a ton every day between junior high and the end of high school--I'd average about five pages of doodles and sketches every day while in my classes, most of which ended up unfinished, though a ton of it ended up on my dA. Seriously, out of all of the currently 32 pages of deviations in my gallery, about 25 of those pages were all from my high school years. o-o; And again, those weren't all my drawings/sketches/doodles. This is...sort of a scary thought, come to think of it.

These days, though, I've really slowed down with drawing--even when I have urges to draw, or ideas I want to bring to life, I'm oftentimes just too lazy or unmotivated to draw. That said, I still do draw a bit--I think every other day or so, I'm doodling or drawing about three pages of stuff, two of which usually are failed sketches that I'll store away after working on for about 10-15 minutes, while one I'll be set on for maybe 30 minutes, maybe more or maybe less depending on how motivated I am about completing the picture. So if I had to guess, I suppose I average about 4-6 hours a week.